For Today's research about my background I started by the first thing that defines each person: Our name. My parents named me Ida because it means the third eye in old German, that is located in the forehead above the meeting point of the two eyebrows. I have always been fascinated by the eyes, doors to the soul, but also the tools that permit us to have visual memories. I thought also about the fact that in English Ida is pronounced Eye-da. And that the word includes the eye. However, the main reason why I chose to work on this part of the body is because of my grandfather. My dad passed away when I was still a child and ever since my grandfather took his place. He is a person that counts a lot for me. Being very old, he has since a few years cataract on his eyes but refuses to remove it, afraid of loosing sight. Last year we discovered that he is starting to loose memories and that we couldn't do anything for it. From that moment on, each time I visit him I try to find in his blurred green gray eyes my memory. I am afraid of him forgetting me and I wished there was a remedy against it. 

Which is why I dedicated myself to represent him loosing his eyes ( his ida's ) and his memories at the same time.

For the collages I called my grandmother and asked her to take pictures of his eyes and send them to me so that I could explore them. I also used old picture of us together that captured the best moments I had with him. I hope that I will be able to translate my feelings into fabric samples, because the subject that I chose really matters to me a lot.

so I started doing some researches about the eye and its connection to the memories of the human.

According to the old saying the eyes are revealing deep emotions that we might otherwise want to hide. Although modern science precludes the existence of the soul, it does suggest that there is a kernel of truth in this saying: it turns out the eyes not only reflect what is happening in the brain but may also influence how we remember things and make decisions.Our eyes are constantly moving, and while some of those movements are under conscious control, many of them occur subconsciously. When we read, for instance, we make a series of very quick eye movements called saccades that fixate rapidly on one word after another. When we enter a room, we make larger sweeping saccades as we gaze around. Then there are the small, involuntary eye movements we make as we walk, to compensate for the movement of our head and stabilise our view of the world. And, of course, our eyes dart around during the ‘rapid eye movement’ (REM) phase of sleep.

What is now becoming clear is that some of our eye movements may actually reveal our thought process.Research published last year shows that pupil dilation is linked to the degree of uncertainty during decision-making: if somebody is less sure about their decision, they feel heightened arousal, which causes the pupils to dilate. This change in the eye may also reveal what a decision-maker is about to say: one group of researchers, for example, found that watching for dilation made it possible to predict when a cautious person used to saying ‘no’ was about to make the tricky decision to say ‘yes’. 

This isn’t about whether the eyes in general are smiling or frowning, little crinkles at the corner indicating its a true smile not fake; Whether the pupils are dilated indicating excitement and arousal, or contracted indicating disinterest. It’s about the click of recognition that occurs when two people who are self aware become directly aware of the awareness of another. I would give that click a little verbal phrase that goes off in our consciousness, “I see you seeing me see you” and “You see me seeing you see me.” To me, when the eyes click you’ve got the possibility for non-verbal soul to soul communication. Exactly what and how this communication occurs however is not reducible to words—at least not to any words I know of. Words would be an intrusion on the experience. We only do this with people we are willing to let know us intimately because of the inherit risk.

Today's process development was more difficult than the other days, working on making fabric samples is far  from being my greatest passion and it was quite difficult for me , and very new because I am not used to think about the visual of a fabric.I always communicated my approach to fashion by creating the different shapes on the human body.  The 3D process of working has always make me have more ideas and inspirations than the 2D.

Bu I must say that the theme given this week about doing researches of our or background pleases me a lot. As I am very close to my family and more precisely of my grandparents, It have chosen a subject that matters a lot me. And I think that when I struggle with different techniques I a not used to, It helps me working on a subject that means to me, it helps me not giving up.  

I realized today on looking at my peers work how different people can treat their memories and how diverse the outcomes can be. I saw 3 different people working as well on the eyes, and their vision on it and representation where so different from mine. I am always learning from the others, and it always make me want to improve in what I do. Get better and better at my work and evolve.

I am not completely satisfied with how I displayed my work today. I noticed that sometimes the things that took me the less of time, were the ones that were the most eye-catching. As for example the color palette I decided to create by using my water colors. To show the colors I used, I covered the rest of them with white tape. This process took only five minutes and yet it was the one thing on the table that was the most seen. Overthinking doesn't work, and I tend to overthink everything. In the future I definitely need to work on being more playful and letting myself go crazier. I would like to go even more out of my comfort zone.

I still am proud of the work that I produced for this particular project, I gave a lot of myself in it. It meant a lot to me because of the story I decided to tell. But the one thing that really marked me was to see each other person work. I have an enormous admiration for my peers and the work they produced this week. I was fascinated and at the same time deeply touched to discover each ones background. 

I was positively surprised by the the result of my sample and that they looked like textiles even used for most of them only glue to attach them, because I still have a lack in sewing. I tried to mix diverse materials that matched well with the different consistency of the eye and also the cataract phenomenon. I wished I had I little bit more time to experiment more and even try to really knit and sew different textiles together. I think though that I could have been more original on the way of displaying them and also how I presented them. I am definitely coming up with a different idea that will be more eye-catching next time.